Navin, good evening. And thank you for coming. And it looks like there's so many, quite a few new people. So I'm looking forward to getting to know you this week. Hmm. And we'll really start tomorrow, but I thought it would be nice just to meet with you briefly this evening. And if some of you are really new to all this, it's going to be a little strange. But for those of you who know me, you know that I feel looking at what our views are is very important.

[01:13]

I think it's both a need for us practicing in the West, And also an advantage. Because for any practicing Buddhist, to know what your views are is essential. It's one of the Eightfold Paths, the Buddha's first teaching. It starts, the very first teaching starts with right views. So we're asking, in practice, we're asking really basic questions. What is this world we live in?

[02:30]

And how do we know anything about this world we live in? What is the act of perception? Where we know something about what's around us and know what something about our interior experience. And then there's the knowing as well, which doesn't fall into categories of perception. An ongoing experience of knowing. Now, what's characteristic of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Zen?

[03:55]

With more of an emphasis than in other forms of Buddhism, I think. Is a trust in the body. the body, your physical body and also the body of the earth as we are embedded in it. And this trust of the body means that we don't give you in Zen as many maps as some kinds of Buddhism do. And what goes also with this more mapless practice is a simultaneous trust in the, shall I say so modern, the evolution of consciousness.

[05:05]

In other words, a map assumes you know where you're going. As soon as we assume we don't know where we're going, that we each have to discover where we're going. What we're doing. There's then this sense of a trust in being itself, a trust in being itself. And since being may be too limited a word, we should say a trust in being and non-being. So the trust in the body includes a trust in, we have no words, so I can say sangha body.

[06:42]

The body that evolves or appears through practicing together. Like the common body you feel when you fall in love. I mean, that's quite real to you if you fall in love. But maybe the Sangha is sort of like a large, compassionate falling in love. So there's this kind of energy that comes through practicing together in the Chinese sense of Buddhism and the world which moves us on the path.

[07:52]

In this one lifetime path. Well, it's hard enough to trust your own body. harder to trust other people's. So we can say practice begins with just sitting on your cushion, can you trust yourself? Do you trust the stuff that we are? Do you trust your heartbeat? And when you notice it, you notice that, well, it's numbered. One, two, three. That means the numbering stops.

[08:54]

So sometimes it's a little scary to just notice this stuff we are. But really, if you don't trust the stuff you are, where are you? So we can give you some directions about how to sit. So wir können euch einige Hinweise darüber geben, wie ihr gesessen habt, wie ihr euren Atem zählt und so weiter. Aber vertraut den Hinweisen nicht mehr, als ihr eurem Herzschlag vertraut. So many people ask me, what am I supposed to do? Your heart's beating, your breath is breathing, what's the problem?

[09:59]

So we need some kind of direction for confidence and permission. But really we're just trusting what it is to be human. Or even inventing what it is to be human. Because I believe we actually are living in an invention of what it is to be human. There are many, many possibilities of being human, is my experience and belief. Every writer you've ever read has shared in inventing for you what it is to be human. So Dogen is, we're going to talk I guess this week about actualizing mind from the point of view of Dogen or something like that.

[11:29]

Is that what you mean? So one of the reasons we have the schedule and we're here together is to get a sense of developing a Sangha body. So the schedule doesn't come from, oh, it's nice to do everything together and it's much more convenient and efficient. The schedule comes from developing some rapport or empathy. And maybe later I'll speak about this magic of being able to trust others as well as trusting yourself.

[12:43]

So what does this first line of the Genjo Koan of Dogen say? It starts out in this translation as all things. I think it's useful to think of it as when all things are the Buddha Dharma. When all things are the Buddha Dharma, what could that mean? Yeah, I see all you people out in front of us here in the walls. And this scroll of Tanahashi is in the back. And this scroll, I like a lot, I brought with me this trip. It's a wild Korean guy. This is his version of Mu, emptiness. I think I'll leave it here.

[13:56]

When all things are the Buddha Dharma, when all these things are Buddha Dharma, what does that mean? But when all things are the Buddha Dharma, there is delusion. Oh, thanks a lot. But we already know there's delusion. And this time there's delusion and realization and enlightenment. And now there's practice. And there's birth and death. And there are Buddhas and sentient beings. Now we know we live in a world of birth and death. In delusion and sentient beings. But do you know you live in a world of enlightenment as well? Do you know you live in a world of Buddhas as well as sentient beings?

[15:37]

If you can't imagine this, there's not much point in practicing Buddhism. The practice of Buddhism is to imagine a world which includes enlightenment, realization, and Buddhas. So if we could finish this week with a good, clear feeling in each of us that this world also includes or can include Buddhas We will have accomplished a lot. So when all things are the Buddha Dharma, let's find out what it means that all things are the Buddha Dharma. When all things are the Buddha Dharma, There is delusion and enlightenment.

[16:50]

There is practice. There is birth and death. There are sentient beings and Buddhas. As a practice, I'd suggest let's try to bring energy to each mental and physical act equally. For this week, not just the things you're most interested in or like or something. See if the topography of your experience can be energy brought equally to each thing. When you change the surface of your life, you change your life. And when you bring energy to each mental and physical act equally, or at least you make that effort, you begin to notice when you can do it and when you can't.

[18:15]

This is an entry to... when all things are the Buddha Dharma. Well, I said more than I expected to tonight. So I look forward to starting tomorrow with you and practicing with you. Thank you very much. Ho Jin Jin Mi Myo No Wa Yakusen Man Wo Nio Ayo Koto Katashi

[19:34]

Vāgevī māten mājī sūro koto etārī Nēgāvā kuvānyo rāi nōshin jitso gyōkeshi tate matsurān A free, unsurpassed, free-spirited and welcome dharma can be found in hundreds of thousands of millions of kalpas very rarely. Now that I hear it in heaven, I believe I know the truth of the Tathagata. I suppose this practice week for some of you is a step toward getting familiar with our practice and a step toward doing Sashin.

[21:12]

Yeah, and I suppose for those of you who've done Sashin a number or many sashins. A practice week like this can be a recognition that you really need to work on your views and sashin alone doesn't do it. Can such a practice week bring you the realization that you have to work on your views and maybe a Cezine alone can't do that? Of course, just to sit, follow a schedule and sit still, and actually really sit still, inside and out for seven days, it has some effect on us.

[22:18]

Yeah, it does shake up our views. But I think we still need to find out how to study the Dharma. So that's what we try to do in the practice week, is find a way to study together. No, somebody at Crestone recently got angry in our seminar. We have going on a three-month practice period right now, ANGO. And one of the persons got angry recently in the seminar.

[23:20]

I wasn't there, I just heard about it. He said, why are we talking so much? This is like discussing a sunset. Yeah, I understand his feeling. At the same time I saw on the news these horrible disasters that have happened in Switzerland and Austria. Yes, these avalanches. They're bringing in, in Austria at least, trauma specialists to talk out what happened with people.

[24:30]

So this was interesting. On one hand, it's like talking about a sunset. On the other, it's, you know, here's these people that just had a mountain of snow slide over their houses and lost family members and they need to talk about it. So I just want to say a few things around this subject. You have to decide for yourself how you feel. There's a word in Greek word, agon. And it's the root in English of agon.

[25:32]

antagonism, agonistic, aggression and so forth. Now one of the faculties, we're talking about actualizing the mind. And one of the faculties of mind that we might actualize. And zazen is a way of studying or observing, sitting still enough to observe the mind. Now again, let's create some basic vocabulary, go back over some basic vocabulary.

[26:47]

We have three given minds. waking mind, dreaming mind, and non-dreaming deep sleep. And the big question that underlies Buddhism, is there a fourth mind that joins or is more inclusive of these three? Or does always a certain part of your life go on without your knowledge in dreaming mind or... non-dreaming deep sleep.

[27:48]

So the, you know, I always used to like, I used to have to wash the dishes when I was a kid a lot. And I would always take a very long time to do it. And because a great part of the time I was actually using a glass to look through the soap suds at the silverware. Und die meiste Zeit, wenn ich gespült habe, habe ich durch ein Glas hindurch, durch den Schaum, mir das Besteck im Wasser angeguckt. What are you doing out there, Dickie? Was machst du da vorne, Dick? Oh, I'll be through in a while. Oh, ich bin gleich fertig. Ich weiß nicht, warum mich das Besteck unter dem Seifenschaum so fasziniert hat. Maybe it was my first zazen. Because I feel it's something like that. When you do zazen, you sit still. You begin to be able to see the mind.

[29:10]

Perhaps many minds. More minds than we are trained to see. And I think maybe I was looking for a Buddha between the fork and the spoon. I think there might have been one there. Yet wasn't a specialist at noticing. Hmm. So one of the faculties of mind that we can notice is that the mind has movement. And that movement can be a direction. And that direction can be an intention. And in fact, that direction is an intention.

[30:34]

Usually put there by our parents and our culture. But we have this capacity of intention. What intention do you want to put in this capacity? Do you want to be really conscious about what the intention is there? Now it's interesting, again going back to this word agon, I don't know how you pronounce it in Greek, It means something like the direction of mind externalized as speech put into conflict with other people's, other person's speech.

[31:52]

I think it's a basic idea of Greek culture, civilization. Some intuition or experience or genius that says our culture will develop if we have our ideas challenged. And in Buddhism there's a similar idea that you put your views out there for others to observe, challenge, etc. To be shy about it is simply a form of vanity. Mm-hmm.

[33:02]

Aitikait. Ah, yeah. Sorry? You don't know the word vanity? No, I know. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, so. My goodness, is that Charlie? No. No. It's Charlie's friend. Says they're all in the Zendo. I can look for Charlie now. You need snowshoes. Do cats about snowshoes? Snow paws. So I was impressed this morning with at least the people around me how well you did with this orioke practice.

[34:19]

I actually think I've been doing it for years, of course, but I think it's pretty difficult. Particularly to remember it first, all these little details. And it's actually complex enough that if you have been doing this for ten years, probably you still don't have it quite straight. But the basic thing, most of you seem to have pretty well. And I think for some of you it may be a kind of adventure to find yourself in this, those of you who are new to it. To find yourself in the midst of this example of Zen life. And some of you may feel, on the other hand, some of you may or

[35:20]

They feel trapped in some kind of authority pattern. Sorry. I think most of us tend to function in a mental space. The Oryoki practice, such things as Oryoki practice, is to try to get you to physicalize your space. Now, Buddha Dharma can mean just Buddhist teaching.

[36:42]

But in Zen, it means... the world understood in a way that produces Buddhas. So what brought the original historical Buddha Shakyamuni to Siddhartha, to realization as a Buddha? Like Dogen says, when all things are the Buddha Dharma. When are all things the Buddha Dharma? And the Dharma means Dharma means also the experience of things.

[38:02]

The moment by moment experience of things. Now, here we are in this world. Now, Buddhism's view is there's nothing outside this world. Nothing is hidden. You may not notice everything, but nothing is hidden. It's all here. Mm-hmm. Let me backtrack a little bit to say, you know, to talk about something I don't know anything about.

[39:08]

My sense of when civilization developed because there were tens of thousands of years in which human beings, something like us, were around, but not much happened. As far as we can tell, not much happened. There were no records left. I consider our civilization quite young. One of the best examples of its immaturity is that it's only in the recent decades that we've considered women equal. That's not only a recognition that, you know, just because you're stronger, you're better.

[40:13]

Not better. Because we are better or stronger. but rather that it's also a recognition that complex society needs everyone's participation. Okay. So my sense, you know, I was interviewed my mother recently. You were? Interviewed my mother recently. You interviewed? I did, yeah, I interviewed your mother. She's 93. So I asked her what... all the family names, who those people were.

[41:14]

And I asked her what it was like back in 1910, etc. And I asked her, like, who was your first lover, and things like that. She said, oh, Dickie. Anyway, what was interesting is my mother's memory stretches back to about the Civil War in the United States, to around 1850. The world's changed a lot, but still there's a fundamental sense of what a human being is that's consistent with her that goes back to the middle of the 19th century. Although the world has changed a lot, for her there's a sense of what a human being is that goes back into the middle of the 19th century.

[42:32]

And before, but that's as much as she remembers aunts and great-grandmothers, etc., And some of you will live, at least many of you, I hope, all of you will live into 2050 or so. So that's a 200-year kind of consciousness unit. So we tend to think of time as it didn't exist before our parents or before we were born. When you stop thinking of time in relationship to your parents or yourself, in really our human memory, let's take 200 years as a unit.

[43:40]

Five of those bring us back to Christ. Or ten of them. Yeah, ten of them. And fifteen or twenty bring us back to Buddha. That's not a very long time. And there were tens of thousands of years before that where we don't have any knowledge of recorded history. Yeah. And my sense of when what we call civilization developed is when people started living together. And sharing consciousness. And I would say that Maybe this is too much to say, but this is something I've been thinking about recently.

[45:14]

That I think first people learn to live together, what I would call together-together. And I think modern folks, our modern age, lives together. fundamentally together but functionally alone. In other words, if you examine your own story, of who you experience yourself as, there's almost no elements of it that aren't tied up to other people. Your parents, friends, whatever.

[46:16]

Comparisons to other people. Your story is My guess is your story is almost 100% tied up with other people or comparisons to other people. So I would call that living fundamentally together. But functionally you all have your separate apartments or whatever mostly. Now this kind of Sangha life is conceived just the opposite. It's to discover how to live fundamentally alone and functionally goes against our It goes against our nature.

[47:31]

Okay, so I gave you one of the keys to entering the Buddha Dharma. Last night. Which is to try to treat everything equally. To try to bring your energy to each thing equally. Let's say bring your attention to each thing equally. More than that, bring your energy to each thing equally.

[48:31]

Now when your arm is asleep, your mind is not in it. You can't move your hand, you can't, etc., find your arm. But when your consciousness goes back into your arm, it wakes up and you can feel your mind in your hand. And I think if you can think of your arms and hands as oars, Perhaps fins. Because you are stirring up, you are conducting or moving the physical aura. You're bringing, you're moving this physicality of mind with your hands.

[49:40]

Now I'm just trying to say things partly to challenge you. Maybe I'm not saying it exactly right, but I'm trying to say things in a little different way than usually we think about it. The third Zen ancestor, Sang San, he was the thirtieth from Buddha. Again, as I pointed, there's 50 people or 40-some people here, right?

[50:53]

Again, put into perspective what we're doing. Historically and perhaps mythologically, 90 people connect me to Buddha. That's not very many. Now, if we played telephone and I told him something and he told you and you told... By the time we get over here, who knows what it would be, right? Do you call the game telephone in German? Quiet mail or so. Quiet mail. That's better. Quiet mail. Okay. But if I spent ten years telling him... And he spent ten years telling you, or fifteen.

[52:02]

The message might be quite accurate by the time it gets here. And that's all the lineage of Buddha is, is 90 people, in my case, and it's a little less than some people and more than others. Ninety people have told for ten years or more, another person, this is what it is to be human. And one of these secrets is to treat each thing equally. You tend to physicalize the world when you do that. Now I often speak about when you concentrate on your breathing, when you have an intention to bring your attention to your breath,

[53:21]

You're physicalizing your mind. To mix your breath and your mind, to mix your attention and your breath is to physicalize your mind. Again, basic vocabulary. In yogic culture, all mental phenomena has a physical component. And all physical sentient phenomena has a mental component. And our society tends to emphasize the mental component.

[54:28]

Buddhist culture and yoga culture tends to emphasize the physical component. Are you still with me? So actualizing the mind in Buddhist terms means to physicalize the mind. It's one of the things it means.

[55:31]

To physicalize the mind means to make the mind the Buddha Dharma. When all things are the Buddha Dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, and birth and death, and sentient beings and Buddhas. Now this afternoon you're going to speak about this. Try to sort out with yourselves what this might mean to you. And you're trying to sort it out in words that don't...

[56:35]

Don't interfere with your mind. And words that tend to melt away. And words that are antidotes to our habits of seeing and feeling. Now, if I, excuse me, if I, you know, hit him, he might say, ouch. I didn't. Well, do you say ouch in German? Okay. He would say it in German, I'd say it in English. But he hasn't been thinking. That's a physical thing. He doesn't have to think. Well, I think maybe now I'll say ouch. Yeah. Yeah. So we're trying to find some place where words are more physical.

[57:42]

Where we're not leaking. Now again, going back to this third Zen ancestor, He said, the great way is not difficult. What a relief. What a relief. But then he said, only avoid picking and choosing. Und dann sagt er, verhindert nur aussuchen und auswählen. Oh, scheiße. Don't have to translate. That's not so easy.

[58:59]

Only avoid picking and choosing. Das ist nicht so einfach. Hört einfach nur auf, auszusuchen und auszuwählen. Mhm. Generally, when we're making a lot of mental distinctions, we're leaking. And meaning we often don't feel nourished by what we're thinking and doing. Like talking about a sunset. Mm-hmm. I'll just say a couple more somewhat related things. The assumption of Freud using a meditation posture of reclining on a couch and so forth,

[60:03]

A mental meditation posture of free association. And the assumption that there's some kind of log jam. in our unconscious. Do you know log jam? Like all the logs coming down the stream and get... It's a kind of log jam and if we can bring these logs into consciousness, we free up the log jam. But sometimes there's a logjam in our consciousness that dreams free up. This is all quite interesting.

[61:08]

How words, concepts get tied up with us physically. So there's some craft or experience in finding out a talk about what's intimate to you. Without having vanity and fear and comparisons influence you. Just to be able to say things with daring and trust. You know, it's interesting that we always interpret dreams in the service of consciousness. We never interpret consciousness in the service of dreams. We give priority to consciousness. I can't say that Buddhism gives priority to dreams, but it gives priority to, we could say, big mind.

[62:31]

Now, you know, if I... It's such a common reaction, I find. In the West, we think silence is golden. Do you say that in German? What I think that actually means is is that we Westerners tend to only experience the physicality of mind when we're not talking. Because I think the phrase silence is golden refers to a physical experience of mind. Zen practice is to discover the physicality of mind

[63:36]

which is also there when you speak and act. Now the problem is, if I don't say anything, everybody says, oh God, this is like talking about a sunset. But if I say too much, everybody says, how can I speak? Is this physical words or mental words? So if I say too much, I inhibit you. If I say too little, you... wonder what the heck you were doing, you leak. So you have to work it out. So, Dogen has a poem.

[64:59]

Even in the spring wind, the peach blossoms come apart. Doubt does not grow. Der Zweifel führt nicht dazu, dass Zweige und Blätter wachsen. Selbst im Frühlingswind fallen die Blütenblätter herab. Doubt does not grow branches, stems and leaves. Zweifel wächst keine Zweige, Blätter und Stämme.

[66:00]

The great way is not difficult. Only don't pick and choose. So how are we going to talk about these things? Which is fundamental to Zen practice is to talk about these things. Or Dogen wouldn't have written what he wrote. So how can we do it in a way that affects our practice? Helps our practice together. Helps us discover what it is to live fundamentally alone. and functionally together. Thank you very much. Mögen unter Absichten gleichermaßen Mögen unter Absichten gleichermaßen Mögen unter Absichten gleichermaßen in Ottisch dringen in Ottisch dringen Mögen unter Absichten gleichermaßen [...] in Ottisch dringen Mögen unter Abs

[67:42]

A-GOR-MO-YO-SE-GA-N-GA-KU RU-TSU-YO-HO-BU-SHA-LO-HO-FU-SE-GA-N-GA-KU I feel the presence of the psalms. [...] The Dharma is boundless. To master it is the path of the Buddha, and to achieve it is the path of the Buddha. Bhūvijñājñājñājñājñājñājñājñā

[69:12]

Va-e-ma-ken-ma-chi-jo-ji-so-ro-ko-to-e-ta-ri-de-va-va-va Satsang with Mooji is also found in hundreds of millions of Calvary children. Now that I can hear and hear and hear, I believe the truth of the day has come. In a way I'd just like to sit with you, but I have to talk with you too.

[71:07]

And I know some of the newer of you wonder sometimes why I wear robes, for instance. Or we still chant so much in Japanese. Well, I keep the chanting in Japanese, I think, Japanese, Chinese, because... I want us to know our roots. I don't like this chauvinism that everything that's modern is best. And I was... I've been struck looking at Chinese and Japanese scrolls from different centuries.

[72:32]

And you always see the late persons in every and every century they're dressed differently. And over hundreds of years the monks are always dressed the same. So I like being unfashionable. Yeah. This is my universal fashion. Yeah. At the same time what I've been emphasizing is I want you to recognize that you're studying Buddhism in order to study yourself.

[73:43]

Like if we wanted to take this water out there and test it, we'd take it to some laboratory. And they would analyze it and tell us what the water is. It's pure or not, etc. The purpose is not to study what the laboratory is doing, but to study the water. But Of course, we also want to study what the laboratory is doing. There might be some better process. But still the point is to study the water. Even if we study the process, It's about studying the water.

[74:58]

So we are here in this place. Trying together actually, it's not just me doing this. Nor is it just Gerald and Gisela and Dieter and Petra. Monica and Gertz and so forth. Sabina. It's each of you, we're trying to imagine what it is to do this. Just like in the morning, I always get amused how hard it is to get going fast when we do walking kin hin. And each person affects it. Even if one person is ambling along at what they think is a good fast speed, that slows everyone down.

[76:11]

So, in the beginning stages you really have to push. Put some energy into it. So, each one of you is affecting, you know, not only Khinian, but what we do here. So we have, it was suggested that we look at this topic in relationship to a text, Dogen's text. But I'm pointing out that there are several texts here. One text is this place. We've put an institution down on European and German soil.

[77:30]

And we have another one in Colorado in the mountains. This is a kind of fact. I mean, we're putting this practice in this society. And we have to take the consequences, which may be significant one way or the other, of putting the practice into a site in a society. And, you know, Crestone is even, I mean, it's much more land and buildings, but as a number of people, it's much smaller than this.

[78:32]

The number of year-round residents is about the same. But the Buddha on our altar was given to us by America's most powerful family. What does that mean? What's going on at this little remote place in a tiny town sixty miles from the nearest real grocery store? Anyone's interested in giving us anything. Why is this village tolerating us? Because Gisela is so nice.

[79:37]

There must be some other reason too, though. Yeah. What's going on? You know, and part of it, of course, is I want to create a place that is nice enough that you guys take care of it. after I'm gone. I want this place and Crestone to survive my dotage and death. Dotage means when you bring me down to lecture, I'm drooling down my front. Senility or something like that. Taken back upstairs. Hmm. And so we need successors to do it.

[80:55]

You guys have to do it. So that's one of the texts, you know, really, what are we doing here? And another text is your own practice. a sight-related Sangha. In other words, we're trying to create in the Dharma Sangha a Sangha that can be a lay practice but is related to two particular sites. To particular people and to a particular teacher and a particular lineage. And there's also then just the sense of the text of the Sangha itself, not just your own practice.

[82:24]

Now I know that most of you are really practicing on your own. But I want you to also understand this Sangha practice when you have a chance and when you are here. This generation of a Sangha body which has the power to push the practice forward into the next generation. Solitary realizers seldom have descendants. Now we have the actual Dogen's text.

[83:54]

And text, at least in English, means something that's woven. Most of it means wattle. Wattle is the stuff you weave a wall of to put plaster on. Like a farmhouse you weave it. You don't have to translate. It also related the word badger to burrow, to dig. So text means something like the source that we weave or burrow into. It also has the word till in it, to prepare soil for cultivation.

[84:58]

And all those senses are present in a text, a Buddhist text. you know, we have to look at what it means to look at a Buddhist text. Now the problem with looking at a Buddhist text in relation to a seminar like a practice week like this is in a week we don't really have time to actually look at it. Because Dogen is presenting us his mind, his wisdom, and that's some distance from our own. So how do we bridge this gap? Now the Gendrakon, I suppose, In the last decades I've read it, I don't know, maybe a hundred times.

[86:18]

Yeah, and I've read it for feeling, for the phrases that might stick with me. That's useful to do. But it's not studying the text in a traditional way. And I've read it quite carefully and slowly a number of times. But to actually study it, I've only studied some portions a few times. Of course, to study a small part of it, thoroughly opens up the rest of the text. Now, in traditional Chinese fashion, the title is not just a label.

[87:25]

It's a distillation of the whole text. So, gen, jo, ko, an. And gen is... What appears. So you work with that. What appears. What I've been speaking about. What appears. How do you relate to what appears? To second nature. word Joe is to complete. So you can work with that. We could stop right now, of course.

[88:38]

Take the next year on completing what appears. And that's really how you do work with a text like this. You just take a small portion of it and stay with it till you can do it or realize it. So the first is to notice what appears. Now, what we first notice usually is what appears to our senses. But I said earlier in this week that there's also a knowing that continues independent of the senses. Now that's a knowing that's hard to notice.

[89:43]

It's not... You can't notice it as long as you have a mind of picking and choosing. A mind in picking, choosing means a mind that swings between alternatives. And that never notices what's in between. I like this, I don't like that. This is interesting, this is not interesting. Like often the way we read. We read for what's interesting and we don't read every word.

[90:45]

So now I'm speaking about noticing what appears. This is quite a practice. Luckily we can do several practices at once or we'd have to live to be a thousand years old to even get past the third paragraph of the Genjo Koan. So you instill in yourself. You instill? Instill means to... place inside, to instill in yourself a sense of noticing what appears. What is it? What is it? And then, as you develop a sense of noticing what appears, now you're not saying what should appear, just what appears, then you start working with...

[92:29]

Completing what appears. Completing in yourself. And I've often spoken about working with these two words, nourishment and completeness. Like right now, is there a sense of completeness in the way my hand is on this stick? And in a way, my other hand rests on it. And I'm sitting this way because actually it makes me feel complete. And if I shift my posture, say, like that, I shift it to a place in which I feel complete. So I'm always moving from completeness to completeness.

[93:48]

So finding ways to practice like this in your own terms, not in some Buddhist terms, but just in your own terms, What appears? How do I have a mind which finds what appears complete? And koan is usually genjo koan. Koan is usually... translated in the Dogen tradition, to mean directly experienced truth.

[94:58]

Not any idea of truth from some philosophical point of view, just what you experience. What you actually experience. Yeah, and it also means the first principle. Okay, now, the point of calling it the first principle So we wonder how we study the water. What do we really want to know about the water? We want to know whether it's drinkable or not. So the first principle

[95:55]

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